“Passing the time of day with Jack,” Dan called the scrimmage; as we left the field of battle and looking back we found that already the Bromli kites were closing in and sinking and settling earthwards towards the crows who were impatiently waiting our departure—­waiting to convert the erst raging scrub bulls into white, bleaching bones.

Travelling quicker than the cattle, we were camped and at dinner at “Abraham’s”—­another lily-strewn billabong—­when the mob came in, the thirsty brutes travelling with down-drooping heads and lowing deeply and incessantly.  Their direction showing that they would pass within a few yards of our camp fire, on their way to the water, as a matter of course I stood up, and Dan, with a chuckle, assured me that they had “something else more important on than chivying the missus.”

But the recollection of that raging mob was too vividly in mind, and the cattle beginning to trot at the sight of the water, decided against them, and the next moment I was three feet from the ground, among the low-spreading branches of a giant Paper-bark.  Jackeroo was riding ahead, and flashed one swift, sidelong glance after me but as the mob trotted by he trotted with them as impassive as a statue.

But we had by no means done with Jackeroo; for as we sat in camp that night at the Springs, with the cattle safe in the yard, shouts of laughter from the “boys’” camp attracted our attention, and we found Jackeroo the centre-piece of the camp, preparing to repeat some performance.  For a second or so he stood irresolute; then, clutching wildly at an imaginary something that appeared to encumber his feet, with a swift, darting run and a scrambling clamber, he was into the midst of a sapling; then, our silence attracting attention, the black world collapsed in speechless convulsions.

“How the missus climbed a tree, little ’un,” the Maluka chuckled; and the mimicry of action had been so perfect that we knew it could only be that.  Every detail was there:  the moment of indecision, the wild clutch at the habit, the quick, feminine lift of the running feet, and the indescribably feminine scrambling climb at the finish.

In that one swift, sidelong glance every movement had been photographed on Jackeroo’s mind, to be reproduced later on for the entertainment of the camp with that perfect mimicry characteristic of the black folk.

And it was always so.  Just as they had “beck-becked” and bumped in their saddles with the Chinese drovers, so they imitated every action that caught their fancy, and almost every human being that crossed their path—­riding with feet outspread after meeting one traveller; with toes turned in, in imitation of another; flopping, or sitting rigidly in their saddles, imitating actions of hand and turns of the head; anything to amuse themselves, from riding side-saddle to climbing trees.

Jackeroo being “funny man” in the tribe, was first favourite in exhibitions; but we could get no further pantomime that night, although we heard later from Bett-Bett that “How the missus climbed a tree” had a long run.